Acta Crystallographica Section C in 2014

The Inter­national Year of Crystallography in 2014 is a perfect opportunity for the Inter­national Union of Crystallography to refurbish all of its journals and publishing activities. The launch of IUCrJ is a prime example of this endeavour, while all of the IUCr journals, as of January 2014, are being published only in electronic format, which is in keeping with the modern needs of readers of scientific journals.

Changes are also afoot at Acta Crystallographica Section C: Structural Chemistry. The subtitle of the journal has been changed to reflect the fact that small-mol­ecule crystallography undeniably plays a crucial role across the wide scope of the chemical sciences. Section C is the journal of choice for the rapid publication of articles that highlight inter­esting research facilitated by the determination, calculation or analysis of small-mol­ecule crystal and mol­ecular structures. Articles that emphasize the science and the outcomes that were enabled by the study and analyze how the structural observations help the understanding of the chemical, physical or structural question being investigated are particularly welcomed. The journal has a reputation for publishing high-quality crystal structures, but articles describing difficult or challenging structures and the strategies used to handle them are also welcomed. As well as research papers, the journal publishes lead articles, feature articles, letters to the editor and scientific comments.

In order to inaugurate the new scope of Section C and demonstrate to readers and potential authors the types of papers that the journal is keen to attract, the journal is producing a number of special issues. Three have already been published: Scorpionates in September 2013, Pharmaceuticals, drug discovery and natural products in November 2013 and Inter­play of crystallography, spectroscopy and theoretical methods for solving chemical problems in December 2013. Favourable comment has been received on these excellent special issues and you are invited to see for yourself. Two more are currently planned: Computational materials discovery in February 2014 and Nanostructures in April 2014. In addition, a virtual special issue on Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) will be released in early 2014. I am extremely grateful to the Guest Editors of these special issues, who have put so much time and energy into soliciting high-quality papers.

New streamlined Notes for Authors will be released in early 2014. The latest version of the helpful and easy-to-use publCIF program is recommended for adding the required text sections and tables to an existing CIF. Preformatted text written in Word can be pasted directly into a CIF using publCIF and the formatting will automatically be recognized and converted into the CIF mark-up style. Alternatively, authors now have the option of writing and submitting their paper as a Word document using the template supplied on the journal's website. The CIF then only needs to contain the technical data for the reported crystal structure determinations.

It remains for me to thank warmly the Co-editors and technical editors of the journal for their ongoing support and contributions that keep the journal operations flowing smoothly. One Co-editor recently retired from active duty with the journal: I am most grateful to Peter Müller of MIT for all of his efforts over the last several years.